The company has been appointed by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust to double the hospital’s intensive care capacity for newborns, with the unit the only designated newborn intensive care unit covering the Thames Valley (Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire). The contract has been let through the Procure 21+ framework.
The new 410 sq m, two-storey extension, which received planning permission from Oxford City Council in February, will provide an additional 10 cots for premature and critically ill babies and will enable the trust to provide more space for each cot.
There will also be a new secure entrance, reception, ward clerk’s office and waiting area for families and a quiet room for parents. Willmott Dixon has started initial site preparation works ahead of the planned construction start later this month. The project is due for completion in early 2013.
The NICU extension is the second contract that Willmott Dixon has been awarded by this NHS trust. It is also building a £1.3m extension to the Kadoorie Centre at the John Radcliffe Hospital to provide an additional 350 sq m of desk-based research space for orthopaedic trauma surgery, intensive care medicine, the resuscitation department, emergency medicine and anaesthetics. This single-storey extension is being built on top of the hospital’s main entrance. Work is due for completion at the end of this year.
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